"I am a stranger here," he said, "but my name is Somers, Will Somers, and I have come here to be a clerk in Tilton's apothecary-store; been in Boston, you know, with Tompkins & Thomas, Tilton, when he was up the other day at our store, said that he wanted a clerk and offered me the chance, which I concluded to accept. I want a boarding-place, marm; but what a town this is? Do I look like a tramp, and if I don't, what is the matter that I cant get a boarding-house? Do I look like one?"

Here he looked at Aunt Stanshy, making such an appeal with his frank, blue eyes, that Aunt Stanshy could not well do otherwise than say, "Why, no!"

"Then wont you take me?"

"O--I--I--said I never would take boarders,--and--and--I am unprepared,--and--and--"

"O this room will do first-rate. I shouldn't want one any better, really.

I know"--here he gave a very approving glance about the room. "Now come, do! It would please mother very much."

"Have you a mother living?"

"O yes, and she is one of the best mothers, too, and I think you look like her. There are four of us brothers. How much your little boy looks like my little brother Willie at home! Come here," he said to Charlie, who had opened the door to ask Aunt Stanshy a question, "come here and see what apothecaries carry in their pockets. Some folks think they only carry drugs and such things, but you see if it is so?" Here he put into Charlie's fat hand a long and toothsome piece of checkerberry pipe stem!

"He is not my little boy really," explained Aunt Stanshy, and then she went on to say who Charlie was, and also told about other things, finally saying so much concerning the Macomber family that he ceased to be a stranger and seemed to become a relative, a species of long-absent son, and consistently what could Aunt Stanshy do but let Will Somers--an arrival in Seamont only a few hours old--have that sacred apartment--her front room?

"What a fool I am!" soliloquized Aunt Stanshy. She watched Will Somers go down the street after the interview, and heard him whistling "The girl I left behind me." Did he mean Aunt Stanshy? "I'm a nat'ral-born fool, I do believe," she exclaimed, "letting a perfect stranger have that room; but there, it will be sort of nice having him round. I s'pose he will want to stick a lot of things into that room." And didn't he stick up "things" and make changes? Down came the two yellow crockery crow-biddies that had roosted on the mantelpiece the last twenty years, never having paid for the privilege with a single crow. Down came two vases of dried gra.s.ses.

Down came a flaming red, yellow, orange, and green print of an American farm-yard. Up went various things. Over the mantel-piece was suspended a picture of Abraham Lincoln, garnished with American flags, and along the mantel-piece was ranged a row of photographs, princ.i.p.ally of young ladies, several fans coming at intervals, while about the room, on various brackets, stood more photographs, mostly feminine, and more flags, all American. It ought to be said in fairness that, while several of the young ladies did not have at all a family look, others did, and were introduced to Aunt Stanshy as Will's sisters. He had a flag over his mother's picture. Then there was a red-hot chromo of a fire-engine, and a cool one of two white bears on a cake of ice.

"O dear, what a boarder!" said Aunt Stanshy, going into the room twenty-four hours after it had been very orderly arranged by her. "Things are stirred up now. It looks like a tornader."

That was the way it generally appeared, and yet Will Somers, impulsive, careless, thoughtless, but frank, enthusiastic, generous, dashing, and honorable always, was very popular with Aunt Stanshy and Charlie. In Charlie's eyes he was a marvelous being. Such wonderful fires in the city as he told Charlie about! And then, what did Aunt Stanshy's boarder do but join the "Cataract" engine company in Seamont! He made a stir generally in the old place, starting a gymnasium and organizing a "reading circle," and putting things generally in a whirl. He had a "voice," and he had a guitar, so that his "serenades" were famous; and he set Aunt Stanshy's heart all in a flutter one night when, awaking about twelve, she heard his well-known voice leading off in a serenade, while he tw.a.n.ged his guitar to the tune, "O dearest love, do you remember?" Will Somers was popular in a very short time with every body. In the club-circle he was the object of an open, undisguised admiration. They quickly made him an honorary member, and he quickly set them up a "pair of bars," put in proper position the ladder, and suspended swings, that they might practice gymnastics every day. Every mother who had a boy in that club expected almost any day that her idol might be brought home stretched on a shutter or bundled up in a wheelbarrow. No limb though was broken, and there were some wonderful developments of "muscle" (so the club thought). One day the new honorary member made an offer.

"Boys, I can have the next Sat.u.r.day afternoon that comes along, and Aunt Stanshy says there is a garrison-house on the other side of the river.

Come, I'll hire a boat and take you over."

"O good!" "Yes, we'll go!" "Three cheers!" "Hurrah for Will Somers!" were some of the outcries greeting the proposition.

"I think, boys, all the honorary members ought to be invited."

"Certainly," said Sid, and Aunt Stanshy was invited.

"See me going! The idea!" she exclaimed.

"What if the minister should see me going off with a parcel of boys!"

"He would say you were a very sensible woman," said Charlie, and Aunt Stanshy went.

The club admired the rowing of Will Somers as he performed with bare arms and showed a "fearful muscle." The boat was a very large one accommodating all-the party, but the oars-man refused to have any help, and progress was slow. At last the other side of the river was reached in safety. They walked through a ship-yard, and then, turned into a country road, sweet with wild flowers, nodding on either side. Beyond this they came to a piece of road, bordered with stiff, stout pines.

"There it is!" said Aunt Stanshy. "It is that block-house."

"What! the garrison-house?" inquired Sid. "Big as that? I thought they were smaller."

"The real garrison-house is in the corner, this way, and makes one room on the first floor. People that came to live in the garrison-house built above it and built beyond it, turning the garrison-house into a single room in a big, old-fashioned building. Mr. Parlin, may we take a look at the garrison-house?"

"Sartin, sartin. Step in. I guess Amanda is there, washin' the baby; but she's used to children, and wont mind you more than flies," said a stout, broad-shouldered farmer, pa.s.sing through the yard, a hoe resting on his shoulder. "Let me go with you."

Amanda, who was washing the baby, and at the same time trying to keep in decent order six other children, gave them a hearty welcome, and showed that she did not mind them more than "flies."

"Aunt Stanshy, how d'ye do? Are these all your children?" asked Amanda, laughing.

"Yes," said Sid; "she is our mother to-day, and we are proud of her."

The white shields all smiled their approbation of Sid's ready gallantry.

"And this is the garrison-house?" inquired Will Somers.

"Yes," replied Mr. Parlin; "we are between its walls, and solid walls, too, they are. See that feller overhead stickin' out from the ceilin'.

There is a beam for you, all of oak, too, and it measures eleven inches by thirteen. Now step outside. There, boys, in that corner, the clapboards are broken, and you can see what was the original style of the walls. They were laid in this way: big, square sticks of oak were laid one upon the other, the ends dovetailed and secured by pins, the cracks being filled with mortar. You see, no Injun bullet could go through that wall, and there would be little satisfaction in building a fire against it, unless an immense one."

Will Somers was here striding over the ground, pacing the length of the garrison wall.

"About twenty feet," he said.

"Yes, twenty feet hits the mark," replied Mr. Parlin. "The sticks are a foot wide, and measure six inches through. It makes a pretty good wall.

Step in and I'll show you where they went in and out. There, it was that narrow door over in that side, and that openin' up there, about two feet square, they say, was the winder, and they used to fire out of it. At night they fitted a block into it and fastened up the door-way with logs."

"Did they have any Indians about here, any real ones?" asked Charlie.

"There is only one kind, sonny, when you talk about full-blooded Injuns, and I guess our fathers found it out. Injuns! Thick as pizen any day. Why, down in that place just beyond here a woman was goin' along one day, and she was carryin' an earthen pot. The Injuns just whooped out on her, and it was the last time the poor thing was seen alive. The pot was found afterward, and is kept by one of our families in town to-day. Injuns! I guess so. Of course, when they were about here the alarm was given, and the people came flockin' to the garrison-house, and they were safe enough here."

How the eyes of the club projected! The governor informed Pip that his...o...b.. stuck out far enough to hang a mug on.

The party slowly made its way back to the boat.

"How foggy it is!" said Aunt Stanshy.

"It has all come up while we were gone."

"Don't worry," said Will. "I'll row you across."

"I hope you wont row us anywhere else, I'm sure."

"Don't worry," again remarked the young apothecary, and in a very confident tone.

"Let me pint you first right for Peleg Wherren's fish-house, for there's a good landin' place at his wharf," said Aunt Stanshy.

Standing on the pebbly sh.o.r.e, she bowed to the level of the boat's rail, and then aimed her as if an enemy directing a columbiad at Peleg's fish-flakes, eel-pots, and other articles, promising to let a cold shot drop in their midst.

"There, I've pinted her; now go right across."

"All right," sang out Will, cheerfully.

Like a great, gray, woolly blanket, the fog rested on the river, and Seamont was as effectually hid as if fifty miles away.

"Look--out!" screamed Aunt Stanshy. Something big was now looming up directly before the bow of the boys' boat.

"Don't run that ship down," said the president.